Major Western leaders snub China's New Silk Road summit?

by Loren Pratt on 21/04/2017

Only one leader of a big Western country is attending China's most important diplomatic event of the year, a summit next month on President Xi Jinping's New Silk Road strategy, as China's foreign minister denied it had been snubbed. "India will have a representative". New Delhi, however, has not confirmed it participation in the May 14-15 event.

It uis expected that Chinese president, Xi Jinping, opens the meeting with a speech after which there will be a round table with attending leaders.

Still, at a time of uncertainty about the USA place in the world following President Donald Trump's pledges to put America first, China sees an opportunity to become more of a global leader and has found a receptive audience for its New Silk Road.

"Certain sections of the CPEC have raised concerns on the Indian side but these disputes are not the result of the economic corridor and the economic activities in this region are not the direct result of CPEC".

China's ambitions are clear, it wants to be the "global friend" but the rapid development it is undertaking could leave all other powers miles behind the Asian country on its path to progress.

Wang said the CPEC has no bearing on China's stand on Kashmir, that Beijing did not take sides and it was for India and Pakistan to resolve the issue. "I want to mention that the CPEC is economic, and for the goal of serving economic cooperation and development". This is wrong, said Jiang Shixue, a professor at Shanghai University and deputy director of the Institute for European Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. China has been providing support to Pakistan in these areas for many, many years.

"The culture and historical genes of One Belt, One Road come from the old Silk Road, so it takes Eurasia as its main region", he said, adding that representatives of 110 countries would attend.

Liu encouraged young people to work for heritage protection, entrepreneurship and innovation, which is conducive to people-to-people exchanges among countries along the Belt and Road Initiative route.

France and Germany has cited upcoming elections for not sending their heads of state and will be sending high-level representatives instead. Those not attending at the highest level include India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Afghanistan. Seven of the 10 members of the Association of South East Asian Nations are sending the heads of their governments.

Among those attending will be Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. He said the following countries will send their presidents: Argentina, Belarus, Chile, the Czech Republic, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Laos, the Philippines, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.